GIFT   OF 
EVGENE  MEYER,«Jf& 


REMINISCENCES 

of  the 

EULOGY  of  RUFUS  CHOATE 
on  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Delivered  at  Dartmouth  College,  July  26,  1853 

and 
DISCURSIONS 

more  or  less  therewith  connected 

BY 

CHARLES  CAVERNO,  A.M.,  LL.D. 

Dartmouth,  1854 

Author  of  "Divorce,"  "A  Narrow  Ax  in  Biblical 

Criticism,"  "Chalk  Lines  over  Morals,"  "The 

Ten  Words,"  "Theism  et  Als,"  etc.,  etc. 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 
1914 


COPYRIGHT,  1914 
SHEHMAK,  FRENCH  &  COMPAXY 


PREFACE  A 

The  title  page  is  perhaps  sufficient  preface. 

The  following  letters  are  inserted  because 
they  are  endorsement  of  the  "  Reminiscences 
and  Discursions,"  by  men  whose  judgment  is 
held  in  public  respect.  I  am  indebted  to  both 
these  gentlemen  for  corrections  of  my  manu 
script. 

CHARLES  CAVERNO. 

LOMBARD,  ILLINOIS. 


PREFACE  B 

85  DEVONSHIRE  STREET 
BOSTON,  October  22,  1913. 
Dr.  Charles  Caverno, 

Lombard,  Illinois. 
My  Dear  Dr.  Caverno :  — 

I  ran  across  your  favor  of  the  23rd  ult.  only 
last  evening.  We  had  been  away  for  nearly 
a  month  and  the  house  had  been  closed.  I 
read  your  reminiscences  through  without  stop 
ping.  The  paper  was  extremely  interesting  to 
me  and  not  less  so  I  think  because  it  was  dis 
cursive,  as  papers  of  that  sort  have  a  right  to 
be.  It  will,  I  am  sure,  interest  a  great  many 
people  as  it  did  me.  If  you  have  a  clear  recol 
lection  of  the  effect  of  Choate's.  speaking  I 
think  it  would  be  well  to  expand  a  little  upon 
that  point.  You  describe  Choate's  manner, 
but  was  there  the  spell  upon  the  audience  that 
we  know  he  often  produced?  I  have  been 
told  that  at  the  time  he  made  the  speech  he 
seemed  weary.  Your  paper  satisfies  me  upon 
one  point  upon  which  I  was  curious,  and  that  is 
whether  he  read  or  spoke  the  speech.  It  seems 


PREFACE  B 

to  me  almost  incredible  that  he  should  have 
spoken  it  with  literalness,  but  he  appears  to 
have  done  that.  It  would  be  interesting,  how 
ever,  to  have  the  version  of  Mr.  Raymond  if 
that  were  printed  from  his  —  Raymond's  — 
notes  and  not  compared,  as  you  say  it  was, 
with  Mr.  Choate's  manuscript.  I  want  to  ex 
press  again  the  pleasure  which  the  reading  of 
this  paper  gave  me  and  the  hope  that  it  will  be 
published. 

Sincerely  yours, 
(Signed)       S.  W.  McCALL. 


PREFACE  C 

DOVER,  N.  H.,  December  8,   1913. 
My  Dear  Caverno : — 

I  cannot  express  to  you  the  height  of  the 
pleasure  you  have  given  me  by  sending  me  this 
manuscript.  I  have  read  it  more  than  once, 
and  that  is  the  reason  I  have  not  returned  it 
before.  It  calls  up  so  many  of  the  joyful  hours 
we  have  had  in  life,  and  the  great  experiences 
of  which  you  and  I  can  speak,  more,  I  am  sure, 
than  the  average  among  men. 

To  send  it  to  me  was  most  considerately 
thoughtful  in  you.  And  then  you  have  given 
such  a  graphic  portrayal  of  the  events  of  our 
long  pilgrimage,  and  of  this  one  particularly  — 
which  made  such  a  profound  impression  upon 
us  —  and  is  so  much  a  part  of  great  history. 

You  have  told  the  story  of  that  day  and  in 
vested  it  with  an  interest  that  perhaps  none  but 
you  and  I  can  appreciate.  I  recall  the  mem 
orable  summer  day  and  the  old  church  —  the 
crowd  —  the  rush  —  the  intense  interest  — 
and  the  great  orator  as  he  unfolded  before  us 
what  has  always  seemed  to  me  one  of  the  great- 


PREFACE  C 

est  literary  and  oratorical  performances  in  the 
history  of  man. 

Most  graphically  have  you  told  the  story 
with  just  enough  of  personal  incident  to  make 
it  attractive  and  life-like. 

The  story  of  the  oration  with  its  accessories 
and  collateral  incidents  reproduces  to  me  a 
memorable  experience.  I  sat  down  not  far 
from  the  left-hand  center  of  the  aisle  close  by 
the  "  coign  of  vantage  "  which  you  occupied  — 
crowded  into  a  seat  in  the  most  favorable  place 
I  could  get  and  hold  in  the  rush  —  and  I  sat 
immovable  while  the  melancholy,  dark-skinned 
an.d  curly-headed  wizard  poured  forth  those 
great  periods,  standing  firmly  on  his  feet,  and, 
as  you  say,  making  no  gesture  or  movement, 
but  given  up  apparently  to  introversion  —  to 
the  obsession,  as  it  were,  of  his  own  memories 
of  the  great  presence,  gone  from  his  and  our 
mortal  sight,  "  till  the  heavens  be  no  more." 

You  have  happily  discriminated  and  pre 
sented  the  double  character  of  Choate  as  the 
"  Attorney "  and  as  the  "  Philosopher  and 
Statesman." 

Your  calling  the  oration  the  crowning  prose 
threnody  is  happy.  It  is  just  that.  In  fact,  it 
is  the  most  pathetic  lament  in  our  language. 
How  much  I  have  been  drawn  to  it,  and  how  it 
has  clung  to  my  memory  that  has  given  up  al- 


PREFACE  C 

most  all  things  else !  There  has  never  been  an 
hour  for  sixty  years  past  when  I  couldn't  re 
peat  from  memory,  with  absolute  accuracy,  the 
first  twelve  lines  from  the  Munroe  edition  as 
you  transcribe  them — "  It  would  be  a  strange 
neglect,"  etc. —  and  the  close  which  you  also 
quote,  is  grand  and  without  parallel. 

How  much  neglected  and  how  little  known, 
how  unfamiliar  even  to  scholars,  is  this  great 
discourse !  How  it  could  have  escaped  fame 
and  comment,  as  it  has,  is  a  mystery  —  and  to 
the  disgrace  of  culture  and  the  students  of  lit 
erature  and  eloquence !  For  it  stands  at  the 
summit  of  all  such  performances. 

Burke's  "  Impeachment  of  Warren  Has 
tings  "  is  great,  but  of  another  sort,  and  not  its 
equal  in  literary  and  other  richness. 

You  refer  to  Parker.  Parker's  "  Dis 
course  "  was  great.  It  was  sour  while  Choate's 
was  sweet.  Perhaps  I  rate  it  higher  than  you 
do  —  perhaps  I  also  rate  Lodge  higher  — 
for,  in  truth,  with  all  my  admiring  pride  for 
the  stupendous  intellect,  the  noble  nature,  the 
fervid  patriotism,  and  the  vast  services  of  Mr. 
Webster,  I  can't  get  over  nor  drown  out  from 
my  memory  the  terrible  indictments  of  Parker 
and  Whittier,  nor  the  cold  but  merciless  argu 
ment  of  Lodge. 

But  how  true  it  is  that  the  events  of  '60  were 


PREFACE  C 

a   complete  vindication  of  the   fears   and  the 
Judgment  of  the  great  man  of  '50! 

Your  introduction  of  Ogden  Hoffman,  Sew- 
ard,  Phillips  and  other  episodes  is  felicitous.  I 
heard  Hoffman  and  all  the  rest  in  our  old  days. 

So  you  see  that  I  had  no  exception  to  take 
to  the  story  of  Choate's  eulogy,  and  it  is  told 
with  so  much  truth,  interest  and  literary  style 
in  your  paper  that  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  it  in 
type.  As  to  the  argument  —  the  polemics, 
shall  I  say  —  of  your  second  part,  I  can  speak 
but  little  —  because  I  haven't  read  it  with  very 
critical  interest,  nor  have  I  quite  formulated  as 
yet  my  views  of  Mr.  Webster's  place  in  history 
—  as  to  his  merits  pro  and  con,  and  on  the 
whole  —  and  can  only  say  that  I  have  read  it 
just  enough  to  see  that  it  is  done  with  character 
istic  literary  taste,  acumen  and  argumentative 
force,  and  of  course  is  a  valuable  and  very  con 
clusive  presentation  of  the  claims  of  Mr.  Web 
ster's  friends  and  admirers  in  the  great  conten 
tion  as  to  him  which  posterity  is  now  and  will 
hereafter  be  concerned  with. 

I  have  only  rather  cursorily  examined  and 
now  very  hastily  write  about  this  work  of  yours, 
but  shall  hope  to  place  it  among  my  literary 
treasures  before  the  coming  of  the  shadows. 

Yours  ever, 

(Signed)  DANIEL  HALL, 
Class  of  1854,  Dartmouth  College. 


Reminiscences  of  the  Eulogy 
of  Choate  on  Webster 

Thoreau,  being  asked  what  he  thought  of  a 
certain  lecture  to  which  he  had  listened,  said  it 
was  not  interesting  —  the  man  had  nothing  to 
say  about  himself.  On  reflection  you  may  see 
that  Thoreau  stated  a  principle  of  criticism  of 
deep  import  and  wide  range.  The  personal 
element  gives  zest  to  literature.  I  have  this 
year  read  the  autobiographies  of  General  Sher 
man,  Nathaniel  S.  Shaler,  Simon  Newcomb  and 
Henry  M.  Stanley.  It  would  be  a  dull  re 
mainder  if  the  personal  element  were  left  out 
from  the  writings  of  these  men,  and  only  the 
history  and  science  with  which  they  were  con 
nected  were  set  forth.  Reminiscences  are  cer 
tainly  personal.  They  must  embody  the  mem 
ory  of  some  man.  Comment  thereon  must  be 
doubly  personal.  The  reminiscences  I  give 
must  be  mine  —  the  comment  certainly  mine. 
I  assert  mine  in  no  derogation  of  the  rights  of 
others.  At  that  commencement  sixty-one  years 
ago  many  things  occurred  which  I  did  not  see. 


2  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

Much  thought  can  spring  from  that  occasion 
of  which  I  am  not  master.  There  still  live 
many  who  can  add  to  or  correct  what  I  may 
say.  To  such  I  give  advice  —  write  your 
memories  and  reflections  and  make  use  of  them 
when  you  have  opportunity,  as  I  have  fre 
quently  done  in  the  past  half  century.  Then 
you  will  do  something  of  interest  and  value  at 
least  to  yourself. 

I  am  writing  of  Rufus  Choate.  I  heard 
him  on  two  occasions,  and  I  heard  a  different 
man  each  time.  About  which  one  of  them  do 
you  expect  to  hear?  Rufus  Choate  was  an 
attorney.  Rufus  Choate  was  philosopher  and 
statesman. 

I  will  tell  you  first  about  the  Rufus  Choate 
of  whom  I  do  not  write.  Pardon  a  little  de 
tour.  In  the  spring  of  1856,  with  my  certifi 
cate  of  admission  to  the  bar  of  the  State  of 
New  York  in  my  pocket,  I  turned  my  face  home 
ward  to  New  Hampshire  that  I  might  see  my 
father  and  mother  once  more  before  obeying 
the  command  of  Horace  Greeley  or  somebody 
— "  Go  West."  In  Boston  I  called  on  a  col 
lege  classmate,  William  A.  Herrick,  who  had 
himself  just  been  admitted  to  the  bar  in  Massa 
chusetts.  He  said:  "  Your  visit  is  timely,  for 
Choate  is  at  work  in  court  today."  I  was  set 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  3 

sharp  for  such  exercise.  In  Albany  I  had  seen 
John  K.  Porter  and  Lyman  Tremaine  at  their 
best  in  the  courts.  I  had  heard  John  Van 
Buren  and  Charles  O'Connor  spar  with  each 
other  before  the  Court  of  Appeals,  Hiram 
Denio  presiding.  I  heard,  in  the  fall  of  1855, 
William  H.  Seward  in  the  rotunda  of  the  Cap 
itol  at  Albany  make  the  speech  in  which  he  dis 
missed  the  Whig  and  Democrat  parties  and 
espoused  the  then  forming  Republican  party. 
A  little  incident  occurred  which  relieved  the 
sobriety,  almost  solemnity,  of  Mr.  Seward's 
speech.  He  had  said,  after  discussing  the  his 
tory  and  principles  of  the  Whig  party:  "  Let 
the  Whig  party  pass."  After  treatment  of  the 
Democratic  party,  in  like  manner  he  said: 
"  Let  the  Democratic  party  pass."  No  sooner 
were  the  words  spoken  than  a  man  who  was 
seated  on  the  steps  beneath  Mr.  Seward's  feet 
jumped  up  and  cried  out:  "  Well,  then,  let  me 
pass,  begorra,"  and  made  his  way  rapidly  down 
the  steps  and  through  the  assemblage.  But 
the  brogue  and  the  u  begorra,"  and  the  rapid 
exit  were  such  apt  comment  on  Mr.  Seward's 
"  Let  the  Democratic  party  pass,"  that  Mr. 
Seward  had  to  bow  himself  in  laughter  with 
the  whole  crowd. 


4  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

CHOATE  THE  ATTORNEY 

For  the  moment  I  speak  of  Mr.  Choate  at 
the  bar,  who  is  not  Choate  of  the  Eulogy.  The 
Choate  of  the  bar  has  filled  the  horizon  of  pop 
ular  conception  so  that  it  is  necessary  to  dismiss 
him  with  some  absoluteness  in  order  that  the 
Choate  of  the  eulogy  may  come  to  the  front. 
Southey  gives  good  description  of  Choate  the 
attorney: 

"  How  does  the  water  come  down  at  Lodore? 
Here  it  comes  sparkling 
And  there  it  lies  darkling, 
Here  smoking  and  frothing 
Its  tumult  and  wrath  in 

Now  turning  and  twisting 
Around  and  around 
In  endless  rebound." 

Other  literature  gives: 

"  The  restless  seething  sea." 
"  The  sea  wrought  and  was  tempestuous." 

The  last  sentence  Mr.  Choate  quoted,  in  a 
speech  delivered  in  Boston,  as  descriptive  of  the 
national  condition  in  March,  1850.  If  you 
read  the  Bible  you  can  find  the  quotation  in 
place.  Such  quotations  suggest  the  action  of 
Mr.  Choate  in  practice  in  court.  There  he 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  5 

worked  —  worked  all  through  and  all  over. 
His  mind  was  alive  and  his  whole  body  was 
alert  to  express  his  mind.  He  sprang  to  his 
feet  with  the  quickness  of  sight.  The  long 
curls  of  coal  black  hair  rolled  on  his  head,  his 
arms  flew  round  and  round  like  the  spokes  of 
my  mother's  spinning  wheel  to  my  childhood's 
eye.  You  were  sure  his  toes  worked  in  his 
boots  with  the  nervous  energy  that  came  down 
to  them  from  the  eld  prehensile  prime.  He 
walked  about  in  the  clear  space  in  the  bar  — 
now  bending  forward,  half  prone ;  now  straight 
ening  up  till  you  feared  he  might  lose  balance 
and  fall  backward:  now  he  was  addressing  the 
court  and  now  parleying  with  the  opposing  at 
torney.  (By  the  way  Ambrose  A.  Ranney, 
Dartmouth,  1844,  was  the  opponent.  Mr. 
Choate  was  Dartmouth,  1819.  Ranney  was 
afterward  for  several  terms  M.  C.  from  a  Bos 
ton  District.)  Mr.  Choate  has  often  been 
called  a  great  actor.  If  you  mean  by  the  word 
anything  savoring  of  histrionic  mime,  there 
could  be  no  greater  misrepresentation.  His  ac 
tion  was  all  his  own,  originated  by  himself, 
spontaneous  to  the  occasion.  That  was  the 
way  in  which  he  filled  the  demand  of  the  law 
expression  ':t  Work,  labor  and  services  done 
and  performed."  He  put  into  use  all  the  dy 
namics  of  his  entire  being.  He  lived  in  such 


6  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

action  at  the  bar.     Pardon  one  or  two  further 
digressions. 

OGDEN  HOFFMAN 

Ogden  Hoffman  of  New  York  City  spoke 
before  the  United  Literary  Societies  in  the  fore 
noon  of  the  day  of  the  eulogy  in  the  afternoon. 
To  me,  a  New  Hampshire  farm  boy,  it  seemed 
strange  that  the  faculty  should  bring  a  lawyer 
and  politician  from  New  York  to  divide  the 
honors  of  the  day  with  Mr.  Choate.  Were 
not  Joel  Parker  and  Salmon  P.  Chase  still  on 
the  horizon  of  life's  activities,  and  a  long  line 
of  Dartmouth  graduates  in  "  the  higher  walks 
of  life,"  and  were  there  not  literati  of  high  rank 
distributed  up  and  down  New  England?  Why 
a  New  York  Dutchman  poaching  on  our  manor? 
But  I  was  old  enough  to  learn  even  then  that 
the  faculty  of  Dartmouth  might  know  what  it 
was  about. 

Here  I  wish  to  say  that  I  think  the  faculty 
of  the  college  from  the  beginning  have  been 
wise  enough  to  teach  and  guide  their  students. 
We  pride  ourselves  on  our  graduate  roll.  But 
there  were  directing  forces  behind  that  roll  that 
gave  it  much  of  its  possibilities.  The  faculty 
of  Dartmouth  has  not  been  in  the  lime  light  of 
publicity.  But  as  Mr.  Webster  said  of  the 
affection  of  graduates  for  the  college: 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  7 

"There   are  those" — and  they  are  many  — 
"  who  love  "  and  honor  their  teachers. 

PROFESSOR  ROSWELL  SHURTLEFF 

An  incident  connected  with  the  action  of  the 
college  when  the  death  of  Mr.  Webster  was 
made  public  impressed  me  at  the  time  and  still 
is  clear  in  memory.  I  have  never  seen  it  in 
print.  It  deserves  preservation  and  forward 
passing.  At  the  first  meeting  of  the  college  in 
the  chapel  in  Dartmouth  Hall  after  the  an 
nouncement  of  Mr.  Webster's  death,  the  fac 
ulty  were  seated  on  the  platform.  Among  them 
came  Mr.  Webster's  tutor  —  Roswell  Shurt- 
leff.  This  was  the  first  and  only  time  I  ever 
saw  him  in  the  chapel.  He  was  "  an  old  man, 
well  stricken  in  years  "  and  had  long  been  emer 
itus.  More  than  half  a  century  had  passed 
upon  him  since  he  taught  Daniel  Webster,  but 
he  carried  his  six  feet  of  stature  with  upright 
military  precision.  It  was  a  cool  morning  and 
he  wore  a  long  cloak  which,  loose  upon  his 
shoulders,  gave  emphasis  to  his  brawny  frame 
as  he  stood  up  before  the  students.  In  his  brief 
speech  was  this  remark:  "Young  gentlemen, 
if  there  was  any  one  thing  that  distinguished 
the  career  of  Daniel  Webster  in  this  college  it 
was  this  —  he  minded  his  own  business."  I 
am  not  certain  but  that  is  the  best  synthesis 


8  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

that  can  be  put  over  the  total  life  of  Daniel 
Webster.  The  serious,  earnest  attitude  to  the 
duties  before  him  that  marked  the  youth  abode 
with  him  till  his  work  was  done. 

But  to  return  to  Mr.  Hoffman  —  my  recol 
lection  is  that  his  address  was  a  plea  for  the  hu 
manities.  He  was  a  man  "  ruddy  and  of  a  fair 
countenance,"  agreeable  in  demeanor  and  pleas 
ing  in  speech.  The  occasion  was  such  that  he 
could  not  well  help  alluding  to  Mr.  Webster. 
But  Mr.  Choate  sat  on  the  platform  and  must 
be  recognized.  Mr.  Hoffman  did  it  in  this 
way:  coupling  the  names  Webster  and  Choate 
together,  he  simply  said,  "  Fortemque  Gyan, 
fortemque  Cloanthem"  Therein  was  featly 
executed  not  only  the  greatest  compliment  ever 
paid  Mr.  Choate  but  the  greatest  that  could 
be  paid  him.  Think  that  out  and  it  will  take 
you  over  the  immense  range  of  the  history  and 
psychology  of  each  man. 

Look  up  Ogden  Hoffman.  He  was  a  grad 
uate  of  Columbia;  was  commissioned  midship 
man  in  the  war  of  1812;  was  taken  prisoner 
with  Decatur  when  "  The  President "  was  cap 
tured  and  sent  to  Bermuda.  Afterward  he 
fought  against  the  Barbary  pirates.  When 
that  affair  was  finished  he  resigned  from  the 
navy  to  begin  a  legal  career.  Decatur  remon- 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  9 

strated ;  wrote  and  asked :  "  Why  do  you  aban 
don  an  honorable  profession  for  the  law?" 
Mr.  Hoffman  became  eminent  in  legal  prac 
tice  and  frequently  held  a  tight  rein  in  hand 
over  that  rather  ungovernable  steed,  New  York 
politics.  During  all  his  career  he  kept  alive  his 
scholarship.  That  was  the  reason  he  had  the 
forenoon  of  the  day  of  the  eulogy. 

AFTERNOON 

For  three  hours  I  stood  on  the  sill  and 
against  the  south  casing  of  the  second  window 
from  the  north,  on  the  west  side  of  the  college 
church.  How  I  came  in  that  window  those 
who  know  the  customary  march  of  a  procession 
from  Dartmouth  Hall  across  the  common  to 
the  church  can  easily  guess.  The  students  led 
the  procession  and  formed  the  usual  open  order 
from  the  church  door  back  as  far  as  the  classes 
extended  and  then  the  President  and  dignitaries 
and  graduates  filed  in  between  the  open  ranks. 
As  Juniors  our  class  was  well  up  toward  the 
church.  I  remember  looking  down  the  clear 
space  way  across  the  street  and  seeing  the  on 
coming  of  the  stalwart  form  of  Salmon  P. 
Chase  and  farther  down  the  bare  head  and  the 
shoulders,  high  over  all,  of  Long  John  Went- 
worth.  Everything  went  well  with  the  first 
part  of  the  ingoing  procession.  But  in  a  few 


io  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

moments  the  student  guard  was  crumpled  on 
itself  by  the  surging  outside  crowd,  and  then 
came  suddenly  a  free-for-all  struggle  to  get  into 
the  church.  I  was  carried  along  in  spite  of 
myself.  Inside  I  saw  the  middle  aisle  was  al 
ready  crowded  full.  I  worked  my  way  to  the 
west  aisle  and  along  that  to  the  wall  pews  front 
ing  the  platform.  I  stepped  on  a  seat  of  the 
first  pew  not  covered  by  the  platform  and 
thence,  putting  a  foot  on  its  railing  sprang  to 
the  window  sill. 

AN  EPISODE 

An  incident  with  which  I  was  connected 
shows  how  every  attempt  was  made  to  secure 
a  chance  to  hear  Mr.  Choate.  A  man  fixed  a 
plank  against  the  adjacent  vestry  building  and 
placed  one  end  on  the  sill  of  the  window  in 
which  several  of  us  students,  with  locked  arms, 
stood.  Somehow  he  got  on  the  plank  and  lay 
there  prone  looking  between  our  legs.  Then 
he  touched  my  leg  and  said,  "  Give  me  your 
hand  and  I  can  get  up  and  stand  on  my  plank 
and  look  between  your  heads."  We  were 
twelve  or  fifteen  feet  above  the  ground  so  I 
answered  rather  gruffly,  "  Stay  where  you  are. 
You  will  pull  us  all  out  of  the  window."  A 
few  moments  after,  he  touched  me  again  and 
then  said,  "  Young  man,  I  want  to  hear  Rufus 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  n 

Choate  as  much  as  you  do."  That  was  a  cen 
tre  shot  and  I  worked  my  hand  down  and  by  it 
he  pulled  himself  up  and  heard  as  he  wished. 
Some  years  afterward  I  was  making  a  visit  in 
a  Vermont  town  where  a  young  lady  in  whom 
I  had  acquired  considerable  interest  was  resid 
ing  with  an  elder  brother.  In  the  course  of 
conversation  with  this  brother  I  mentioned  the 
fact  that  I  had  heard  the  eulogy  on  Webster 
by  Mr.  Choate.  He  said  by  grand  luck  he  did. 
He  told  how  he  fixed  against  an  adjoining 
building  a  plank,  one  end  of  which  rested  on  a 
window  in  the  church,  and  how  by  making 
friends  with  a  student  who  stood  in  the  window 
he  got  pulled  up  on  his  feet  and  heard  the  whole 
eulogy.  He  said  the  young  man  was  cross  at 
first,  but  afterward  became  civil.  Which  an 
ecdote  teaches  this  useful  lesson  —  be  civil  to 
everybody  under  all  circumstances.  You  do 
not  know  who  may  be  your  brother-in- 
law. 

THE  EULOGY 

I  could  not  have  been  more  fortunately 
placed  than  on  that  window  sill.  The  whole 
platform  and  everything  in  the  church  was 
open  before  me. 

When  Mr.  Choate  rose  to  speak  he  was  at 
full  length  in  view,  and  so  remained  till  he 


12  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

ceased  speaking.     His  distance  from  me  was 
only  half  way  across  the  church. 

Now  dismiss  the  idea  that  you  have  before 
you  Rufus  Choate  the  attorney.  He  was  here 
to  fill  one  of  the  world's  historic  occasions  and 
he  met  it  in  the  majesty  of  calm.  All  the  forces 
of  his  being  were  converted  to  the  expression 
of  thought  in  speech.  He  was  "  vox  et  prae- 
terea  nihil."  If  he  made  a  gesture  during  the 
three  hours,  I  do  not  remember  it.  That  is 
not  to  say  he  was  a  statue,  motionless.  He 
stepped  from  side  to  side  or  slightly  back  and 
forth  to  relieve  muscular  strain,  and  once 
turned  back  to  his  table  to  pick  up  a  paper  he 
wished  to  read.  This  paper  was  the  letter  of 
Professor  Chauncey  Goodrich  of  Yale,  descrip 
tive  of  Mr.  Webster  as  he  made  the  argument 
in  the  Dartmouth  College  case  before  the  U.  S. 
Supreme  Court,  which  argument  Professor 
Goodrich  heard.  He  used  no  notes,  though 
they  lay  on  a  table  behind  him.  The  eulogy 
was  extempore  in  delivery.  That  he  followed 
very  closely  what  he  had  already  written  is 
doubtless  true,  but  there  was  no  evidence  of 
recitation  in  his  speech.  He  had  evidently 
thought  out  just  what  he  wanted  to  say,  as  he 
wanted  to  say  it,  and  he  read  from  a  mental 
photograph  which  failed  him  not.  Its  content 
was  brought  out  by  the  light  of  the  occasion. 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  13 

It  is  written  that  Jesus,  being  asked:  "  Who 
art  thou?"  answered:  "I  am  in  essence  (at 
bottom)  what  I  am  saying."  Mr.  Choate 
seemed  to  realize  that  description  of  personal 
ity.  He  did  not  embody,  rather  he  enspir- 
ited,  thought  and  speech.  There  was  nothing 
about  him  to  distract  attention  from  what 
he  said.  His  appeal  was  to  the  ear  and  to 
that  "  inward  eye  "  which  apprehends  and 
interprets.  *£  This  accounts  for  the  fact  that 
one  could  remember  so  well  what  he  said. 
How  true  he  was  to  what  he  had  thought  and 
written  I  have  two  sources  of  verification. 
When  Mr.  Choate  issued  his  authorized  printed 
edition  (Munroe,  Boston)  I  bought  and  read 
it.  I  did  not  find  any  essential  new  matter  or 
variation  in  expression  from  what  I  heard  on 
my  "  coign  of  vantage  "  on  the  window  sill. 

My  classmate,  Benjamin  Ames  Kimball,  of 
Concord,  New  Hampshire,  reminds  me  that 
Henry  J.  Raymond  came  up  from  New  York 
in  a  special  to  report  the  oration  for  the  New 
York  Times.  He  advised  me  to  look  over  a 
file  of  the  Times  for  that  report.  But  it  so 
happens  that  I  read  that  report  in  the  Times 
in  its  issue  the  first  week  after  the  delivery  of 
the  eulogy.  My  brother  took  the  Times,  and 
I  read  the  eulogy  to  him  and  my  father  as  we 
lay,  on  the  noons  of  haying  days,  under  the  old 


H  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

elm  down  which  the  lightning  ran  when  I  was  a 
babe  in  my  mother's  arms,  but  which  now  I 
think  is  not  o'ertopped  by  any  elm  in  Strafford 
County.  From  this  reading  under  the  old  elm 
I  caught  nothing  new,  or  variant  from  what  I 
had  heard.  The  Times  files  can  be  consulted 
by  the  curious  and  compared  with  the  Munroe 
version  authorized  by  Mr.  Choate. 

HENRY  J.  RAYMOND, 

AND  "THE  BOYS  OF  '54 "—  GODDING,  EATON  AND 
HASKELL 

In  the  early  morning  of  the  day  after  the 
eulogy  a  crowd  of  us  —  students  —  gathered 
about  the  hotel  to  see  the  celebrities  who  were 
going  away  on  the  early  train.  Henry  J.  Ray 
mond  came  out,  satchel  in  hand,  to  walk  down 
to  the  station.  The  report  ran  among  us  (I 
do  not  know  its  reliability)  that  Mr.  Raymond 
had  sat  up  all  night  to  compare  his  notes  with 
Mr.  Choate's  manuscript.  Much  good  would 
his  labor  have  done  him  if  he  had  had  to  read 
the  manuscript  himself,  for  Choate's  handwrit 
ing  was  an  illegible  scrawl  even  to  his  own  sig 
nature.  But  the  story  ran  that  Mr.  Choate's 
clerk  read  the  manuscript  for  the  comparison. 
We  joined  Mr.  Raymond  and  walked  down  the 
hill  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 

The  road  was  the  sidewalk  in  those  days.     I 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  15 

remember  that  in  the  early  morning  after  the 
night  of  the  great  St.  Johnsbury  horn-blow  in 
1851  the  Rev.  Dr.  Richards  and  I  walked  to 
gether  up  the  middle  of  the  road.  Our  path 
way  off  the  bridge  was  unobstructed  —  the 
long  gate  having  been  carried  away  by  the  stu 
dents  who  preceded  us.  I  may  add  that  I  did 
not  blow  a  horn  on  .that  expedition.  Upper 
class  dignity  and  a  fear  of  the  pump  prohibited 
that  exercise  to  Freshmen. 

The  guard  of  honor  for  Mr.  Raymond  down 
the  hill  was  mainly  Eaton,  Godding  and  Has- 
kell,  all  of  my  class.  The  rest  of  us,  no  ac 
count  fellows,  tumbled  along  before  and  behind 
as  we  listed.  Godding  was  for  many  years 
Superintendent  of  the  U.  S.  Asylum  for  the 
Insane  in  Washington.  Eaton  was  the  first 
Commissioner  of  the  Freedman's  Bureau,  and 
also  became  Commissioner  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau 
of  Education,  which  last  office  he  held  for  fif 
teen  years.  Haskell  was  on  General  Gibbon's 
staff  on  the  field  of  Gettysburg,  and  wrote  each 
night  an  account  of  the  events  of  the  day.  This 
record  ex-President  Charles  W.  Eliot  says  is 
not  only  the  best  account  of  that  battle,  but  the 
best  account  of  any  battle  ever  written  by  any 
man. 

The  eulogy  is  the  supreme  threne  of  English 
speech.  Threnody  is  the  expression  of  sorrow 


1 6  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

in  poetic  form.  The  supreme  threnody  in  our 
language  is  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam."  It 
sprang  out  of  contemplation  induced  by  the 
death  of  Arthur  Hallam.  Mr.  Choate  spoke 
in  prose,  but  the  threnic  tone  pervades  the 
whole  eulogy.  It  was  the  utterance  of  a  "  soul 
with  sorrow  laden."  It  expressed  the  very 
tenderness  of  the  sense  of  bereavement.  A  few 
sentences  from  the  beginning  and  the  end  of 
the  eulogy  will  clearly  portray  this  character 
istic. 

Did  you  ever  hear  Wendell  Phillips  pro 
nounce  the  word  "  serene  "?  Simply  with  the 
voice  he  surrounded  you  with  a  whole  atmos 
phere  of  tranquillity. 

"  Strongly  he  bore  you  along  on  swelling  and  limit 
less  billows." 

You  will  wander  far  in  the  eulogy,  over  the 
whole  range  of  the  greatness  of  Mr.  Webster, 
but  you  will  never  be  so  remote  as  to  be  out  of 
touch  with  this  feeling  of  sorrow.  Take  the 
paragraph  at  the  beginning: 

"  It  would  be  a  strange  neglect  of  a  beautiful  and 
approved  custom  of  the  schools  of  learning  and  of  one 
of  the  most  pious  and  appropriate  of  the  offices  of  litera 
ture  if  the  college  in  which  the  intellectual  life  of 
Daniel  Webster  began,  and  to  which  his  name  imparts 
charm  and  illustration,  should  give  no  formal  expres- 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  17 

sion  to  her  grief  in  the  common  sorrow;  if  she  should 
not  draw  near,  of  the  most  sad  in  the  procession  of  the 
bereaved,  to  the  tomb  at  the  sea;  nor  find  in  all  her 
classic  shades  one  affectionate  and  grateful  leaf  to  set 
in  the  garland  with  which  they  have  bound  the  brow 
of  her  child,  the  mightiest  departed." 

Now  turn  to  the  closing  paragraph: 

"  But  it  is  time  that  this  eulogy  was  spoken.  My 
heart  goes  back  into  the  coffin  there  with  him,  and  I 
would  pause.  I  went  —  it  is  a  day  or  two  since  — 
alone  —  to  see  again  the  home  which  he  so  dearly 
loved,  the  chamber  where  he  died,  the  grave  in  which 
they  laid  him  —  all  habited  as  when 

"  '  His  look  drew  audience  still  as  night 
Or  summer's  noontide  air,'  5: 

till  the  heavens  be  no  more.  Throughout  that  spacious 
and  calm  scene  all  things  to  the  eye  showed  at  first 
unchanged." 

(I  omit  here  an  enumeration  of  particulars 
in  which  Mr.  Webster  was  interested — from 
the  broad  acres  and  what  grew  or  grazed 
thereon,  to  the  books  in  the  library.) 

"  Yet  a  moment  more  and  all  the  scene  took  on  the 
aspect  of  one  great  monument  inscribed  with  his  name 
and  sacred  to  his  memory.  And  such  shall  it  be  in  all 
the  future  of  America!  The  sensation  of  desolateness 
and  loneliness  and  darkness,  with  which  you  see  it  now, 
will  pass  away;  the  sharp  grief  of  love  and  friendship 


1 8  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

will  become  soothed;  men  will  repair  thither  as  they 
are  wont  to  commemorate  the  great  days  of  history; 
the  same  glance  shall  take  in  and  the  same  emotions 
shall  greet  and  bless  the  harbor  of  the  Pilgrims  and  the 
tomb  of  Webster." 

And  so  the  great  eulogy  ended.  In  its  de 
livery  no  one  had  been  bound  by  magic  of  rhet 
oric  or  captivated  by  charm  of  manner 

"  As  of  woven  paces  and  of  waving  hands." 

He  spake  right  on,  and  all  his  judgments  were 
as  passionless  as  equations  of  numbers.  They 
expressed  what  to  him  was  and  is  and  is  to  be 
regarded  as  right  in  the  great  realm  over  which 
he  looked. 

The  tone  of  sorrow  evident  in  the  first  and 
last  paragraphs  is  an  underlying  strain  through 
out  the  whole  eulogy.  There  was  not  a  gleam 
of  humor  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  eulogy. 
There  was  not  a  smile  on  the  face  of  the 
speaker  and  not  one  on  the  face  of  a  hearer  for 
the  three  hours.  All  that  time  the  speaker  was 
attent  to  his  theme  and  the  auditory  attent  to 
the  speaker.  The  impression  that  presides  in 
my  memory  now,  over  all  others,  after  the  lapse 
of  sixty  years  and  one,  is  that  of  the  "  solemn, 
dutiful  earnestness  of  the  man." 

Did  you  mark  that  word  "  alone  "  in  the  ac 
count  of  the  visit  to  Marshfield  a  few  days 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  19 

before  the  eulogy  was  delivered?  I  noticed  it 
particularly  when  it  was  pronounced  on  the 
platform.  It  was  spoken  distinctly  —  by 
itself :  "  I  went  —  it  was  a  day  or  two  since  — 
alone."  It  was  a  whole  threne  in  itself. 

Did  I  have  special,  personal  reason  for  my 
notice  of  the  word?  As  the  years  have  gone 
by  I  think  more  and  more  that  I  did.  I  was, 
during  my  Junior  year,  sub-librarian  of  the  Col 
lege  Library.  That  library  was  little  used  by 
the  students.  They  worked  by  the  society  li 
braries.  The  College  Library  was  open  but 
one  hour  each  week  to  the  students.  It  was  in 
fact  museum  rather  than  library. 

One  day  in  April,  before  the  eulogy  in  July, 
to  a  rap  at  my  door,  4  Reed  Hall,  I  said, 
"  Come."  Professors  Brown  and  Sanborn 
came  in.  Behind  them  was  a  third  man.  One 
of  the  professors  said  to  me:  "This  is  Rufus 
Choate.  We  want  you  to  take  him  into  the 
College  Library  and  assist  him  as  he  may  need. 
We  have  recitations  for  the  next  hour  and  we 
shall  leave  him  in  your  charge."  That  was  the 
first  occasion  on  which  I  saw  Mr.  Choate. 

I  conducted  him  to  the  Library  and  asked  him 
what  I  could  do  for  him.  He  said  he  wanted 
writing  materials.  I  readily  placed  them  on 
the  table  in  the  south  end  of  the  room  which 
occupied  the  whole  east  side  of  Reed  Hall. 


20  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

Then  he  said:  "  I  shall  not  need  you.  I  will 
take  the  key  and  bring  it  to  your  room  when  I 
have  finished  here."  He  accompanied  me  to 
the  door  and  locked  it  after  me.  At  the  close 
of  the  hour  he  brought  the  key  to  my  room, 
one  floor  above.  I  saw  him  go  across  the  com 
mon  to  Professor  Sanborn's  house.  That  is 
all,  I  think,  any  one  knows  of  that  hour  of  Ru- 
fus  Choate  alone  in  the  College  Library  in 
April,  1853. 

I  learned  from  Professors  Brown  and  San- 
born  these  facts  in  regard  to  that  visit  of  Mr. 
Choate  to  Hanover.  He  was  going  to  Mont 
real  on  business  and  notified  the  professors 
that  he  would  stop  over  half  a  day  with  them. 
His  visit  was  to  be  entirely  private.  Some  of 
the  students  who  knew  him  happened  to  see 
him  and  there  was  quite  a  little  breeze  among 
them  over  his  presence  in  the  town.  But  he 
went  away  in  the  afternoon  as  quietly  as  he 
came  in  the  morning. 

I  have  thought,  as  the  years  have  gone,  that 
taking  that  time  between  trains  for  the  call  at 
Hanover,  and  securing  the  quiet  hour  in  the 
College  Library  might  have  the  same  psychic 
interpretation  which  he  himself  has  given  to 
the  visit  "  alone  "  at  Marshfield  a  few  days  be 
fore  the  delivery  of  the  eulogy.  Out  of  that 
lone  visit  to  Marshfield  came  by  his  own  testi- 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  21 

mony  that  beautiful,  masterful,  sorrowful  evo 
lution  which  constitutes  the  final  tribute  to  Mr. 
Webster. 

May  not  the  few  hours  between  trains  in 
Hanover  and  especially  the  hour  alone  in  the 
library  have  been  utilized  in  reflection  out  of 
which  sprang  the  thought  and  feeling  inwoven 
in  the  opening  pages  of  the  eulogy?  Think 
how  much  the  college  meant  to  himself.  He 
had  taken  the  full  course  of  study  and  then  de 
layed  a  year  as  tutor  in  the  college.  Then 
think  how  much,  with  this  experience,  he  must 
have  thought  the  college  meant  to  Daniel  Web 
ster,  with  his  memory  of  student  life  supple 
mented  by  the  labor  and  care  and  affection 
shown  in  the  conduct  of  the  great  legal  case  in 
which  he  preserved  the  college  on  the  original 
foundation,  and  on  which  it  has  since  continued 
its  powerful,  happy  and  blessed  influence. 

May  it  not  be  —  must  it  not  be  —  that  that 
hour  alone  in  the  library  finds  explanation  in 
the  beginning  of  the  eulogy  as  the  visit  alone 
to  the  home  and  tomb  at  Marshfield  finds  ex 
pression  in  its  close? 

THE  RANK  OF  THE  EULOGY 

It  must  be  rated  as  one  of  the  greatest  in 
tellectual  efforts  of  man.  Consider  the  im 
mense  range  of  the  subjects  discussed  and  the 


22  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

perfect  mastery  of  language  in  extempore  de 
livery. 

For  instance,  turn  to  the  fortieth  page  (Mun- 
roe  Edition)  and  you  begin  a  sentence  which 
does  not  end  till  you  reach  the  middle  of  the 
forty-fifth.  But  that  single  sentence  contains 
an  enumeration  of  the  particulars  and  of  the 
character  of  the  public  life  and  services  of  Dan 
iel  Webster  from  1813,  when  he  entered  Con 
gress  from  New  Hampshire,  to  his  death  in 
1852.  Is  there  another  such  sentence  cover 
ing  matter  of  such  historic  import  in  the  Eng 
lish  tongue?  If  you  want  a  brief  life  of  Dan 
iel  Webster  turn  to  that  sentence.  At  the  time 
of  its  delivery  I  soon  perceived  that  we  were 
"  on  a  wide,  wide  sea,"  and  wondered  whether 
he  could  make  port  without  a  wreck  of  gram 
mar  and  connection.  But  turn  to  the  end  of 
the  forty-fifth  page  and  you  will  see  that  he 
did. 

The  oration  masses  the  actions  and  events  of 
forty  years  of  the  nation's  history  and  elabo 
rates  the  influence  of  Mr.  Webster  therein.  If 
you  want  a  comprehensive  life  of  Daniel  Web 
ster,  public  and  private,  you  will  find  it  in  the 
eulogy.  There  is  none  other  so  valuable. 
There  is  not  much  probability  that  another  of 
such  merit  can  be  constructed  in  the  same  space. 

Think  of  all  that  wealth  being  packed  into 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  23 

one  hundred  printed  pages!  Edward  Everett 
has  said  there  is  nothing  greater  in  the  English 
tongue.  My  classmate,  Daniel  Hall  of  Dover, 
New  Hampshire,  writes  me  to  the  same  effect. 
I  value  his  judgment  as  highly  as  I  would  that 
of  any  other  man  who  knows  the  content  of 
English  speech.  He  led  our  class  in  all  studies 
longo  intervallo.  He  has  made  a  special  study 
of  English  oratory  during  the  sixty  years  since 
he  graduated.  He  is  President  of  the  New 
Hampshire  Historical  Society,  and  delivered 
the  address  at  the  dedication  of  the  Society's 
new  building  in  1911.  He  heard  the  eulogy, 
and  his  keen,  wise  judgment  is  to  me  conclusive 
of  its  rank. 

Yet  I  fear  that  even  scholars,  or  those  who 
ought  to  be  such,  are  allowing  the  dust  of  the 
generations  to  settle  on  the  covers  of  this  — 
perhaps  greatest  of  English  orations  —  and 
failing  to  keep  in  touch  with  its  mastery  in  liter 
ature,  government  and  history. 

A  few  years  since  I  met  a  man  who  was  fairly 
at  the  head  of  the  bar  in  a  large  western  city. 
He  was  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth  College.  We 
were  talking  in  his  office.  "  Let  me  show 
you  a  treasure,"  said  he.  From  a  drawer  in 
his  library  he  brought  to  me  a  copy  of  my  own 
(Munroe)  edition  of  the  "Eulogy  of  Choate 
on  Webster."  He  said  also:  "A  lawyer  a 


24  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

few  days  ago  in  —  (another  western  city) 
gave  me  this."  I  wondered  what  the  lawyer 
who  gave  the  present  could  think  of  his  own 
act,  and  I  wondered  where  my  friend  had  been 
all  his  life  —  and  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth, 
too  —  that  he  had  not  his  own  copy  and  had 
not  been  a  student  of  it. 

Is  this  experience  characteristic?  If  it  is  it 
is  a  sad  comment  on  the  failure  to  appreciate 
an  effort  that  is  at  the  summit  of  our  literature 
and  not  excelled  in  the  record  of  the  eloquence 
of  any  nation. 

Matthew  Hale  Carpenter,  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  lights  of  the  American  bar,  advised 
law  students,  if  they  wished  to  become  philos 
ophers  in  law,  to  take  some  learned  jurist  and 
follow  him  through  his  total  work,  read  every 
scrap  of  opinion  he  ever  wrote;  thus  the  stu 
dent  would  become  master  of  the  mastery  of 
the  jurist.  A  good  introduction  to  a  mastery 
of  Mr.  Webster  would  be  not  only  to  read  but  to 
study  Mr.  Choate's  eulogy.  There  was  no  man 
in  the  land  who  knew  so  well  the  content  and 
meaning  of  Mr.  Webster's  life  activities. 
When  a  student  in  Dartmouth  College  he  saw 
and  heard  Mr.  WTebster  in  the  trial  of  Jackman 
accused  of  robbery  of  the  Maine  drover  — 
Goodridge.  Their  professional  life  was  largely 
synchronous.  They  were  usually  antagonists 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER          25 

at  the  bar  and  before  the  courts.  Yet  they 
were  life  long  friends.  That  speaks  well  for 
their  conduct  and  the  majesty  of  their  moral 
nature. 

David's  lament  over  Jonathan  was  no  more 
sincere  than  Choate's  sorrow  when  Webster 
died.  Webster's  life  and  character  nowhere 
finds  summary  so  complete  as  in  this  eulogy. 
Therein  Mr.  Choate  passes  his  mastery  of  Mr. 
Webster  over  to  you.  Nay,  more;  therein  the 
might  and  wealth,  intellectual  and  moral,  of 
Mr.  Choate  himself  comes  to  expression.  So 
you  have  a  combination  upon  the  like  of  which 
the  sun  had  not  before  looked.  They  talk  of 
binaries  in  astronomy.  Instead  of  the  light  of 
one  sun  the  light  of  two  shines  together  in  a 
single  star.  You  have  a  binary  in  Choate's 
"  Eulogy  upon  Webster."  The  light  and  heat 
and  magnetism  from  both  ray  in  upon  you,  a 
unit  in  effulgence  and  power. 

I  cannot  comment  on  the  totality  of  this  ora 
tion.  Study  it  by  topic  and  by  sentence  and  you 
will  find  reward  in  literary  felicity,  in  concep 
tions  great  and  true  in  government  and  ethics. 

If  this  writing  is  personal  reminiscence, 
psychologically  true  to  myself,  I  must  say  this 
—  those  were  days  of  intensity  in  politics 
throughout  the  nation.  I  stood  on  the  window 
sill  the  three  hours  without  sympathy  with  the 


26  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

effort  of  Mr.  Choate  and  in  a  spirit  of  aliena 
tion  from  Mr.  Webster.  How  I  came  in  such 
attitude  I  will  set  forth.  This  will  reveal  a 
prominent  element  in  the  psychology  of  the 
times.  If  not  of  "  the  most  straitest  sect  "  of 
the  Abolitionists  I  had  "  sat  at  the  feet  of  their 
Gamaliels  "  and  had  become  imbued  with  their 
principles.  I  must  say  that  "  The  Seventh  of 
March  Speech  "  was  not  viewed  by  a  large  ele 
ment  of  the  people  with  suspended  judgment; 
judgment  ran  against  it.  As  I  stood  in  the  win 
dow,  how  could  I  be  in  sympathy  with  Mr. 
Choate?  Three-quarters  of  a  year  before  I 
heard  Mr.  Choate  I  had  purchased  and  read 
Theodore  Parker's  "  Funeral  Oration,"  deliv 
ered  immediately  after  Mr.  Webster's  death. 
It  is  a  masterly  piece  of  rhetoric.  I  was  pre 
possessed  by  it.  It  led  a  great  chorus  of  con 
demnation  of  Mr.  Webster.  I  am  not  certain 
but  the  kakophemy  —  the  curse  of  Theodore 
Parker  —  still  has  more  influence  over  the  mind 
of  a  very  large  section  of  the  American  people 
than  the  eulogy  of  Rufus  Choate.  That  this 
is  a  grievous  wrong  to  Mr.  Webster  I  think  and 
have  thought  for  many  years.  But  it  took  time 
and  event  to  show  the  unwisdom  of  Theodore 
Parker.  As  I  stood  in  the  church  window  the 
time  and  event  had  not  received  their  unveiling. 
Let  me  read  a  paragraph  from  Parker.  It  will 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  27 

show  not  only  my  attitude,  but  a  widely  preva 
lent  psychology  of  the  day. 

"  To  accomplish  a  bad  purpose  he  resorted  to  mean 
artifice,  to  the  low  tricks  of  vulgar  adventurers  in  poli 
tics.  .  .  .  What  was  the  design  of  all  this?  It  was 
'  to  save  the  Union.'  Such  was  the  cry.  Was  the 
Union  in  danger?  Here  were  a  few  non-resistants  at 
the  north  who  said,  '  We  will  have  no  union  with  slave 
holders.'  There  was  a  party  of  seceders  at  the  south 
who  periodically  blustered  about  disunion.  Could 
these  men  bring  the  Union  into  peril?  Did  Daniel 
Webster  think  so?  I  shall  never  insult  that  giant 
intellect  by  the  thought." 

Now  I  shall  make  no  comment  on  that  para 
graph.  Long  years  ago  I  wrote  in  the  margin 
of  my  copy,  "What  of  1861?"  There  it 
stands.  Some  of  us  have  lived  through  '61-5. 
Neither  Mr.  Choate  nor  Theodore  Parker  saw 
that  day  and  its  revelations.  Mr.  Choate  died 
in  '59  and  Parker  in  '60.  We  are  in  position 
now  to  determine  whose  prevision  was  safest  — 
that  of  Rufus  Choate  or  that  of  Theodore  Par 
ker  :  that  which  came  to  the  front  in  the  lament 
of  the  one  or  the  curse  of  the  other.  The  prob 
able,  in  view  of  which  Mr.  Webster  acted  and 
on  the  ground  of  which  Mr.  Choate  made  de 
fense  for  him,  became  the  actual  before  our 
eyes.  We  have  seen  "  States  discordant,  dis 
severed,  belligerent  and  drenched  with  fraternal 


28  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

blood."  "  A  prudent  man  foreseeth  the  evil 
and  hideth  himself."  Mr.  Webster  foresaw 
the  evil  and  put  forth  mighty  effort  to  hide  the 
nation  from  it.  But  many  men  could  not  and 
would  not  in  that  day  give  him  credit  for  "  the 
spirit  of  prophecy."  They  could  only  judge  as 
we  have  seen  Theodore  Parker  judge  that 
"  to  accomplish  a  bad  purpose  " —  to  wit  his 
own  personal  ambition  for  the  presidency — he 
delivered  "  The  Seventh  of  March  Speech." 
That  suggestion  not  only  had  its  day  when  it 
had  its  day,  but  it  survived  afterward  when 
there  was  no  excuse  for  it,  and  it  even  still 
reigns  dominant  in  many  minds.  It  is  hard  for 
some  people  to  entertain  the  possibility  of  the 
integrity  of  Mr.  Webster  in  his  political  action 
in  1850.  They  resemble  the  witness  in  respect 
to  whose  credibility  a  neighbor  testified,  u  Ordi 
narily  he  would  not  tell  the  truth,  but  put  him 
under  oath  and  he  could  not."  They  seem  to 
be  incapable  of  telling  the  truth  about  Mr. 
Webster.  They  cannot  think  of  anything  but 
that  he  "  fell  "  and  that  "  Ichabod  "  must  be 
written  over  him.  His  name  operates  on  them 
like  a  red  flag  on  a  bull.  No  sooner  do  they 
hear  the  name  than  down  goes  a  horn  to  gore. 
It  is  strange  how  this  attitude  survives.  In  the 
main  address  before  a  state  Bar  Association 
but  a  few  years  since  the  speaker  dismissed  Mr. 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  29 

Webster  as  a  discredited  politician  whose  epi 
taph  is  "  Ichabod."  And  right  there  comes  up 
an  instance  of  the  difficulty  that  some  good  men 
have  found  to  dispossess  themselves  of  a  mis 
construction  they  have  once  entertained,  of  a 
misrepresentation  they  once  have  made.  There 
is  good  evidence  that  the  saintly  Whittier  felt 
he  had  done  Mr.  Webster  injustice  in  the  poem 
41  Ichabod,"  and  that  he  wrote  "  The  Lost 
Occasion"  to  atone  for  it  and  rectify  himself. 
But  even  Mr.  Whittier  could  not  divest  him 
self  of  the  gravamen  of  the  charge  brought 
against  Mr.  Webster  in  his  first  poem.  To 
begin  with,  why  call  his  attempted  reparation 
"  The  Lost  Occasion  "?  A  man  does  not  lose 
what  he  never  had.  Mr.  Webster  did  not  lose 
whatever  "  occasion  "  there  was  for  somebody 
in  '6i-'5,  for  he  died  in  '52.  Perhaps  he  saw 
the  "  occasion  "  in  1850.  He  was  accustomed 
to  see  "  occasions "  before  they  occurred. 
Primogeniture  and  undivided  entail  of  real  es 
tate  were  prohibited  in  France  while  it  was  yet 
a  monarchy.  Mr.  Webster  said  that  would 
make  France  a  republic.  The  France  of  to 
day  verifies  Mr.  Webster's  prevision. 

"  Shaming  ambition's  paltry  prize, 
Before  thy  disillusioned  eyes ; 
Breaking  the  spell  about  thee  wound, 
Like  the  green  withes  that  Samson  bound; 


30  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

Redeeming  in  one  effort  grand, 
Thyself  and  thy  imperiled  land." 

The  implications  are  as  bad  here  as  in 
"  Ichabod."  Redemption  is  a  doctrine  for  sin 
ners.  I  do  not  know  of  any  one  else  who  has 
need  of  it.  "Thy  imperiled  land!"  Ah, 
then  the  land  was  imperiled!  In  1850  Mr. 
Webster  thought  it  would  come  into  peril 
through  the  passionate  partizan  feeling  then 
existing. 

"  Coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before." 
The  statesman  reads  the  meaning  in  the  shad 
ows.  Did  not  Mr.  Webster  read  that  mean 
ing  in  1850?  There  is  terrible  history  to  stand 
as  witness  that  he  did.  What  Mr.  Webster 
might  have  done  in  '6i-'5  it  is  idle  to  specu 
late. 

What  he  did  do  in  1850  raises  an  ethical 
question.  On  that  I  desire  to  turn  attention 
to  the  treatment  given  by  Mr.  Choate.  To 
this  day  no  better  defense  of  Mr.  Webster 
in  the  forum  of  ethics  has  been  made.  Mr. 
Choate's  greatness  nowhere  comes  out  more 
grandly  than  in  his  method  in  ethics  here.  Do 
not  neglect  to  study  it.  And  bear  in  mind  that 
Mr.  Choate  could  not  make  the  appeal  to  '6i-*5, 
for  he  died  in  the  spring  of  '59.  He  had,  as 
justification  for  Mr.  Webster,  to  deal  with  a 
probability  which  did  not  become  actual  till 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER          31 

after  he  himself  was  dead.  By  taking  and 
holding  this  position  he  showed  the  courage  of 
a  friend  and  the  vision  of  a  statesman.  It 
took  both  to  defend  Mr.  Webster  in  1853. 

We  have  developed  in  theology  the  doctrine 
of  salvation  by  invincible  ignorance.  It  may 
be  somewhat  difficult  to  define  rules  for  the 
working  of  the  doctrine.  It  would  seem  in 
case  of  ignorance  that  the  examiner  might  re 
gard  the  ignorance  as  notice  to  quit  and  claim 
release  from  duty  to  pass  judgment  at  all.  But 
there  is  something  more  difficult  to  deal  with 
than  invincible  ignorance.  Invincible  prejudice 
is  worse. 

"  In  the  lowest  deep,  a  lower  deep 

Still  threatening  to  devour,  opens  wide." 

As  you  look  at  ignorance,  you  cannot  charge 
it,  in  itself,  as  culpable.  But  when  you  look 
on  prejudice  you  look  on  mind  wilfully  closed 
against  knowledge,  actual  or  possible.  That 
attitude  is  simply  morally  wrong. 

I  have  no  space  to  itemize,  but  from  begin 
ning  to  end  Mr.  Lodge's  "  Life  of  Daniel  Web 
ster  "  shows  a  mind  unsympathetic,  ungenerous 
and  unfair.  The  twist  sinister  is  given  at  every 
opportunity  possible.  Time  and  event  seem  to 
have  no  influence  upon  him.  In  prejudice 
against  Mr.  Webster  he  is  relentless.  Take 


32  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

this  sentence  from  his  address  at  the  unveiling 
of  the  Trentanove  statue  in  Washington,  Janu 
ary  1 8,  1900.  "This  passionate  love  of  his 
country,  this  dream  of  her  future  inspired  his 
greatest  effort,  were  even  the  chief  cause  at  the 
end  of  his  life  to  make  sacrifices  of  principle." 
"  To  make  sacrifices  of  principle  "  encloses  the 
idea  of  ethical  laches,  or  it  has  no  meaning.  It 
means  to  think  or  do  some  moral  wrong.  Such 
accusation,  too,  forty  years  after  the  War  of 
the  Rebellion ! 

General  Sherman  said:  "War  is  hell." 
Did  we  not  have  "  the  gates  of  Hades " 
opened  wide  in  '61— '5?  We  are  not  yet  free 
from  the  consequences  of  that  "  Hell."  It  was 
in  view  of  the  possibility  of  such  wickedness 
and  wretchedness  that  Mr.  Webster  made  the 
speech  for  "  the  Constitution  and  the  Union  " 
in  1850.  Can  he  not  be  credited  with  a  states 
man's  prevision?  Might  there  not  be  moral 
considerations  connected  with  such  foresight? 
But  Mr.  Lodge  insists  upon  trying  Mr. 
Webster  by  the  condition  of  1850.  Is  it  not 
"  sharp  practice  "  to  exclude  evidence  of  justi 
fication  in  view  of  which  Mr.  Webster  pro 
fessed  to  act  —  evidence  open  to  earth  and  high 
heaven? 

The  subject  of  conflict  of  duties  is  as  old  as 
the  human  race,  and  is  likely  to  last  as  long. 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  33 

Mr.  Choate  has  discussed  that  matter  with 
supreme  ability  in  the  eulogy,  both  theoretically 
and  practically  in  regard  to  the  Compromise 
Measures  of  1850.  It  is  the  common  lot  of 
ethical  man  to  be  summoned  to  make  adjust 
ment  between  not  merely  two  but  a  crowd  of 
duties.  It  may  be  as  ethical  to  choose  the  less 
of  two  impending  wrongs,  not  indeed  to  ap 
prove  but  to  endure,  as  the  better  of  two 
optional  rights.  In  1850  there  was  a  question 
of  the  choice  of  evils.  On  the  one  hand  was 
the  institution  of  slavery  and  on  the  other  the 
probability  of  war.  There  is  no  question  about 
the  wrong  of  slavery.  John  Wesley  said: 
"  Slavery  is  the  sum  of  all  villainies."  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  said :  '  There  is  nothing  wrong 
if  slavery  is  not  wrong."  But  we  were  bound 
in  a  government  that  recognized  slavery  and 
the  practical  question  was  —  men  being  what 
they  are,  how  to  deal  with  slavery  without 
plunging  the  nation  into  war.  The  parable  of 
the  tares  has  application  here.  By  common 
consent  he  who  spake  it  had  good  and  compre 
hensive  vision  in  ethics. 

"  The  servants  of  the  householder  came  and  said  unto 
him:  '  Sir,  didst  thou  not  sow  good  seed  in  thy  field; 
from  whence,  then,  hath  it  these  tares?  '  He  said  unto 
them :  '  An  enemy  hath  done  this.'  The  servants  said 
unto  him :  *  Wilt  thou  then  that  we  go  and  gather 


34  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

them  up  ?  '     But  he  said,  '  Nay,  lest  while  ye  gather  up 
the  tares  ye  root  up  also  the  wheat  with  them.'  >! 

That  certainly  teaches  that  we  must  some 
times  bear  ills  lest  by  attempt  at  sudden  ter 
mination  we  do  irreparable  damage  to  the  good. 
Conditions  are  to  be  taken  into  account.  Mr. 
Lincoln  dealt  more  wisely  and  effectively  with 
the  evil  of  slavery  in  1863  tnan  Jonn  Brown 
in  1859. 

Now  we  can  look  back  over  history,  and  the 
ethical  judgment  of  most  sane,  rational  people, 
I  think,  will  be  that  Mr.  Webster  was  not 
wrong  in  his  attitude.  The  single  thing  that 
slavery  took  by  the  Compromise  Measures  of 
1850  was  an  amended  fugitive  slave  law.  All 
the  other  elements  of  those  measures  inured 
to  the  benefit  of  liberty.  We  were  entangled 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  nation  with  a  pro 
vision  for  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves.  George 
Washington  signed  a  law  to  execute  this  pro 
vision.  That  law  was  on  the  statute  book  in 
1850.  To  Mr.  Webster,  under  those  histor 
ical  conditions,  an  amendment  to  the  fugitive 
slave  law  was  a  less  evil  than  disunion  and  war. 

The  only  question  in  ethics  in  the  decision  of 
this  matter  was  whether  he  had  the  approval 
of  his  own  moral  judgment.  Other  people 
might  have  come  to  different  moral  conclusion. 
But  that  would  not  put  him  in  the  wrong,  if  his 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  35 

judgment  was  his  own.  To  decide  that  Mr. 
Webster  was  wrong  because  others  did  not 
agree  with  him  is  to  mount  into  the  judgment 
seat  and  assume  the  prerogatives  of  the  Om 
niscient  God.  "  Who  art  thou  that  judgest 
another  man's  servant?  —  To  his  own  master 
he  standeth  or  falleth.  Yea,  he  shall  be  holden 
up,  for  God  is  able  to  make  him  stand." 

"  And  only  the  Master  shall  praise  us, 
And  only  the  Master  shall  blame." 

WEBSTER  AND  LINCOLN 

The  injustice  of  men  can  nowhere  be  more 
plainly  seen  than  in  the  fates  and  fortunes  of 
Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  Lincoln/  Some  of  us 
can  remember  when  the  common  designation 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  "  Baboon."  Yet  he  is  no 
better  now  than  he  was  then.  Mr.  Webster 
did  not  invent  a  fugitive  slave  law.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  did.  When  he  was  a  representative  in 
Congress  in  the  later  '405,  he  drew  up  and  se 
cured  the  passage  of  a  fugitive  slave  law  for 
the  District  of  Columbia.  As  President  and 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy, 
when  by  the  laws  of  war  he  was  not  thereto 
compelled,  he  returned  more  fugitive  slaves  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet  than  had  been  returned 
in  the  whole  history  of  the  government,  and 


36  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

prevented  slaves  from  completing  their  own  es 
cape  by  closing  the  lines  of  the  army  against 
them.  Yet  we  have  by  universal  consent  just 
voted  a  two  million  dollar  temple  to  the  name 
and  fame  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  while  the  tomb  at 
Marshfield  is  neglected  and  unhonored. 

The  reply  to  Hayne,  with  its  refrain,  "  Lib 
erty  and  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  in 
separable,"  made  Appomattox  Court  House 
possible  as  truly  as  the  skill  of  generals  operat 
ing  under  Mr.  Lincoln.  Certainly  Mr.  Webster 
was  not  behind  Mr.  Lincoln  in  devotion  to  the 
Union.  The  main  ground  why  the  people  do 
not  have  the  same  enthusiastic  pride  in  the  one 
great  man  as  in  the  other  is  that  Mr.  Webster 
in  1850  supported  a  fugitive  slave  law.  But 
remember  that  nine  years  after  Mr.  Webster 
was  in  his  grave,  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  first  inau 
gural  address,  with  all  his  solemn  earnestness, 
besought  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  ex 
ecute  in  sincerity  the  fugitive  slave  law. 

Aye,  go  on  with  the  apotheosis  of  Abraham 
Lincoln !  It  is  just.  But  if  you  would  be  just 
take  the  ban  from  Daniel  Webster. 

Defense  of  Mr.  Webster  in  1850  may  not 
include  approval  of  every  sentence  in  "  The 
Seventh  of  March  Speech,"  nor  in  subsequent 
speeches.  A  note  of  irritation  against  those 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  37 

who  criticised  him  without  mercy  may  be  appar 
ent.  If  not  excused,  it  may  be  explained. 
Mr.  Whittier  never  wrote  truer  lines  than 
these: 

"  Not  always  age  is  growth  of  good: 
Its  years  have  losses  with  their  gain. 
Against  some  evil  youth  withstood 
Its  hands  may  strive  in  vain." 

Mr.  Webster  was  physically  ill  from  1850 
onward  to  the  end.  The  process  of  disinte 
gration  of  that  magnificent  material  system  in 
and  with  which  he  had  wrought  had  set  in.  It 
takes  force  to  control  force.  And  the  nervous 
forces  were  slipping  from  the  old  time  firm 
grasp.  Near  the  shore  of  age  a  rope  in  the 
rigging  may  slacken  in  a  squall  that  sang  taut 
to  all  storms  on  mid-seas.  A  rudder  old  and 
worn  may  not  respond  readily  or  even  accu 
rately  to  compass  call  in  an  exigency,  yet  the 
ship  may  drop  anchor  in  its  destined  harbor  and 
the  main  purpose  of  the  voyage  be  achieved. 

I  must  speak  of  Mr.  Webster's  character  in 
morals,  and  position  in  religion.  I  do  this  not 
more  for  the  defense  of  Webster  than  because 
in  what  I  write  will  be  revealed  the  greatness 
and  goodness  of  Mr.  Choate.  Recollect,  Mr. 
Webster  was  his  lifelong  antagonist  at  the  bar, 
for  they  were  usually  arrayed  against  each 


38  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

other, —  and  then  remember  that  from  mind 
and  heart  he  wrote  as  follows: 

"  From  these  (Webster's)  conversations  of  friend 
ship,  no  man  —  old  or  young  —  went  away  to  remem 
ber  one  word  of  profaneness ;  one  allusion  of  indelicacy ; 
one  impure  thought;  one  unbelieving  suggestion;  one 
doubt  cast  on  the  reality  of  virtue,  of  patriotism,  of 
enthusiasm,  of  the  progress  of  man ;  one  doubt  cast  on 
righteousness,  or  temperance,  or  judgment  to  come." 

Mark  Mr.  Choate's  language.  That  is  the 
utterance  of  a  lifelong  observer  —  himself  a 
moral  knight  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 
See  what  ground  the  language  covers  in  interest 
and  extent  of  moral  principles.  That  challenge 
has  been  before  the  world  for  sixty  years  — 
has  any  one  couched  a  lance  against  it?  '  If 
any  man  offend  not  in  word  the  same  is  a  per 
fect  man  and  able  also  to  bridle  the  whole 
body."  ..."  Doth  a  fountain  send  forth  at 
the  same  place  sweet  water  and  bitter?  " 

There  are  writers  who  have  visited  banquet 
halls  and  scoured  streets  of  disrepute  to  find 
testimony  that  Mr.  Webster  was  not  "  able  to 
bridle  the  whole  body."  What  they  have  pro 
duced  is  mere  hearsay  —  the  tattle  of  the  slums. 
Reputable  people,  from  prejudice  against  Mr. 
Webster  on  other  grounds,  have  allowed  them 
selves  to  give  currency  to  such  tattle.  Mr. 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  39 

Lodge  can  find  no  better  authority  for  the  insin 
uations  of  immoralities  he  allows  himself  to 
print  than  "  popular  report." 

Mr.  Webster  was  surrounded  all  his  life  by 
a  great  cloud  of  witnesses  —  noble  men  and 
honorable  women.  They  never  uttered  a 
breath  against  his  uprightness  in  family  and  so 
cial  life.  When  Mr.  Webster  died,  the  phy 
sician  who  had  watched  him  for  years  chal 
lenged  any  one  to  prove  that  he  had  ever  used 
drug  or  stimulant  that  for  a  moment  would 
cloud  his  mind  in  the  production  of  state  papers. 

Mr.  Webster  stands  in  moral  honor  in  reput 
able  society.  Choose  whose  testimony  you  will 
take.  Indifference  in  attitude  is  not  tolerable. 
There  may  be  immorality  in  lending  an  indolent 
ear  to  him  who  asperses  character  and  not  pin 
ning  him  down  to  facts.  Allow  for  faults,  im 
perfections,  errors  and  sins  such  as  are  common 
to  man  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  in  heats  and 
misunderstandings  of  politics,  in  adjustment  of 
divers  interests,  in  regulation  of  passions  and 
forces,  yet  Mr.  Webster  stands  before  you  — 
a  lover  of  integrity  and  right,  in  the  majesty  of 
moral  solemnity,  and  like  u  Boston  and  Lexing 
ton  and  Concord  and  Bunker  Hill,  there  he  will 
remain  forever." 

Here  I  wish  to  say  that  the  evidence  is  just 
as  good  for  the  reliability  of  Peter  Harvey's 


40  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

"  Reminiscences  "  as  it  is  for  "  The  Life  "  writ 
ten  by  Mr.  Lodge.  If  anyone  will  read  Mr. 
Harvey's  account  of  the  visit  of  Webster,  just 
a  year  before  he  died,  to  old  John  Colby  of  An- 
dover,  New  Hampshire,  and  of  their  talk  on  re 
ligion,  of  their  prayers  together;  hear  Mr. 
Webster  say,  "  I  hope  and  trust  I  am  a  Chris 
tian  " ;  see  how  natural  it  was  to  the  man  — 
and  wishes  to  regard  such  account  as  fictitious, 
toleration  must  give  him  liberty,  but  the  most 
of  us  will  pity  his  weakness  of  mind.  In  all 
cases  of  accusation  of  immoralities  judgment 
must  be  rendered  for  Mr.  Webster  because  of 
lack  of  any  evidence. 

INTOXICANTS 

In  regard  to  the  use  of  intoxicant  drinks,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Webster  came 
up  to  active  life  in  a  state  of  society  that  allowed 
their  use  for  all  public  occasions  —  even  church 
assemblies.  The  moral  rule  in  the  matter  was 
not  abstinence  but  temperance  —  control.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  the  wave  of  the  move 
ment  for  total  abstinence  did  not  come  to  crest 
till  the  early  forties.  Mr.  Webster  was  then 
sixty  years  old.  The  evidence  is  undeniable 
and  ample  that,  even  under  the  liberties  of  the 
old  regime,  he  always  kept  control  of  himself. 

The  new  and  the  stricter  view  was  not  with- 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  41 

out  its  influence  over  him.  The  testimony  of 
his  physician,  Dr.  Jeffries,  cannot  be  gainsaid. 
The  doctor  says  that  before  Mr.  Webster's 
last  speech  in  Faneuil  Hall  he  advised  him  to 
take  a  little  stimulant.  Mr.  Webster's  reply 
was,  "  I  think  I  shall  not.  I  have  found  the 
benefit  of  temperance."  When  later  in  his 
sickness  stimulants  were  prescribed,  he  was  par 
ticular  that  not  a  drop  more  was  given  him  than 
the  exact  amount  prescribed  by  the  doctor.  A 
physician  is  a  good  judge  of  the  effect  his  pa 
tient's  habits  have  had  upon  him.  This  is  Dr. 
Jeffries'  conclusion:  "I  confidently  express  the 
opinion  that  his  (Mr.  Webster's)  great  intel 
lect  was  never  clouded  by  stimulants,  or  that  he 
was  unfitted  at  any  time,  even  for  the  produc 
tion  of  state  papers."  Thus  stands  the  evi 
dence,  and  "  the  gates  of  the  slums  shall  not  pre 
vail  against  it." 

RELIGION 

Mr.  Lodge,  in  his  customary  way  of  speak 
ing  in  derogation  of  Mr.  Webster,  says  that 
whatever  religion  he  had  was  only  of  the  ordi 
nary  common  sort.  It  is  true  Mr.  Webster  was 
not  as  demonstrative  in  religion  as  John  Wesley 
or  Billy  Sunday.  But  very  much  can  be  made 
out  of  common  religion.  The  common  ele 
ments  in  it  may  have  high  intrinsic  value  and 


42  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

wide  range.  Common  sense  is  not  a  trivial 
matter  if  it  is  common.  As  fine  a  tribute  as 
you  can  pay  anyone  is  to  say  that  he  has  com 
mon  sense.  Mr.  Webster's  great  power  intel 
lectually  is  largely  attributable  to  his  common 
sense,  which  is  only  what  all  men  have.  It  is 
said  that  when  men  heard  him  speak  they  re 
ported  that  he  said  just  what  they  themselves 
were  thinking.  Kipling's  lines  run: 

"  Each  in  his  separate  star 
Shall  draw  the  thing  as  he  sees  it 
For  the  God  of  things  as  they  are." 

Common  sense  is  a  summary  of  things  as 
they  are.  That  is  why  it  is  valued  so  highly. 
Men  are  satisfied  when  they  feel  they  have  at 
tained  something  which  "  the  Everlasting  hath 
fixed  in  his  canon  "  and  they  feel  that  what  all 
men  assent  to  must  be  so  fixed.  The  consent 
is  regarded  as  verification.  In  last  result  sci 
ence  becomes  common  sense.  It  is  demonstra 
tion  of  what  must  be  universally  accepted  or  it 
is  not  science. 

The  law  of  gravitation  has  become  a  tenet  of 
common  sense  because  it  answers  a  common 
requisition  for  explanation  of  the  massing  of 
matter.  The  Copernican  system  is  satisfactory 
to  common  sense.  All  of  the  so-called  laws 
of  matter  and  force  must  ultimately  come  to 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  43 

judgment  before  that  tribunal.  Yet  we  are  not 
going  to  speak  in  derogation  of  Copernicus  and 
Newton  and  the  great  company  of  investigators 
in  science  because  where  a  principle  is  once 
found  everybody  can  understand  it  or  because 
others  could  and  did  find  it. 

Our  confidence  in  democracy  as  a  system  of 
government  rests  upon  confidence  in  the  com 
mon  sense  of  the  people  —  in  their  common 
ability  to  see  what  is  wise  and  right  in  the  com 
mon  regulation  of  action. 

Now  it  may  be  that  the  common,  ordinary 
perception  in  religion  is  as  valuable  as  else 
where,  that  mastery  of  the  knowledge  of  prin 
ciples  that  are  or  should  be  applied  in  life  is  of 
as  high  rank  as  anything  else  upon  which  the 
mind  of  man  can  work.  If  so,  it  may  be  that  a 
man  who  detects  and  explains  what  must  be 
come  common  sense  in  religion  is  worthy  of  es 
teem  as  is  one  who  performs  similar  function 
in  other  departments.  It  may  be  that  Mr. 
Webster  was  a  prophet  in  ethics.  If  not  a  dis 
coverer,  he  was  an  expounder  in  theology  and 
religion  as  well  as  in  the  treatment  of  national 
government  or  international  policy.  The  de 
tection  and  application  of  ethics  to  condition  is 
the  supreme  exercise  of  the  mind  of  man.  An 
order  for  it  is  writ  in  his  very  nature.  There 
is  no  rational  life  without  the  presence  therein 


44  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

of  this  call.  No  better  statement  of  this  fun 
damental  religious  truth  has  been  made  by  man 
than  that  of  Mr.  Webster  in  the  conclusion  of 
the  argument  in  the  White  murder  case. 

"  A  sense  of  duty  pursues  us  ever.  It  is  omnipresent 
like  the  Deity.  If  we  take  to  ourselves  the  wings  of 
the  morning  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
sea,  duty  performed  or  duty  violated  is  still  with  us, 
for  our  happiness  or  our  misery.  If  we  say  the  dark 
ness  shall  cover  us,  in  the  darkness  as  in  the  light  our 
obligations  are  yet  with  us.  We  cannot  escape  their 
power  nor  fly  from  their  presence." 

That  is  exactly  the  rule  in  Cain's  case,  writ 
away  back  in  the  dimness  of  Hebrew  history, 
and  was  recognized  as  common  sense  in  He 
brew^  religious  thought.  "  If  thou  doest  well 
shalt  thou  not  be  approved,  if  thou  doest  not 
well,  sin  coucheth  at  the  door." 

Then  you  may  go  clear  across  one  of  the  earli 
est  chasms  in  the  separation  of  the  primal  race 
and  you  will  find  the  same  common  ethical  sense 
prevailing  in  the  early  activities  of  the  Aryan 
mind.  In  the  laws  of  Manu  it  is  writ  as  para 
phrased  by  Whittier: 

"  The  soul  itself  its  awful  witness  is ; 
Say  not  in  evil  doing,  '  No  one  sees/ 
And  so  offend  the  Conscious  One  within, 
Whose  ear  can  hear  the  silences  of  sin 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  45 

Ere  they  find  voice,  whose  eyes  unsleeping  see 
The  secret  motions  of  iniquity. 

"  Nor  in  thy  folly  say,  '  I  am  alone,' 
For,  seated  on  thy  heart  as  on  a  throne, 
The  Ancient  Judge  and  Witness  liveth  still 
To  note  thy  act  and  thought,  and  as  thy  ill 
Or  good  goes  from  thee,  far  beyond  thy  reach, 
The  Solemn  Doomsman  seal  is  set  on  each." 

Mr.  Webster  in  the  White  case  seems  to  have 
had  command  of  a  common  ethical  possession, 
to  which  he  could  make  appeal,  that  included  the 
whole  horizon  of  man  in  time  and  space.  We 
find  in  common  moral  sensation 

"  To  health  of  soul  a  voice  to  cheer  and  please; 
To  guilt  the  wrath  of  the  Eumenides." 

Mr.  Webster  was  not  amiss  in  calling  the  at 
tention  of  the  jury  in  the  White  case  to  this 
common  ethical  sense. 

A  few  days  before  he  died  Mr.  Webster 
wrote  with  his  own  hand:  "  The  gospel  of  Je 
sus  Christ  must  be  a  divine  reality."  An  ordi 
nary  sentence  in  religion.  But  look  at  its  im 
measurable  range  in  common  sense. 

"  O  Lord,  thou  hast  been  our  dwelling  place 
in  all  generations.  Before  the  mountains  were 
brought  forth,  or  ever  thou  hadst  formed  the 
earth  and  the  world,  even  from  everlasting  to 


46  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

everlasting  thou  art  God."  Mrs.  Stowe  said 
that  that  is  the  most  sublime  thought  which  ever 
entered  the  mind  of  man.  Yet  it  is  enclosed  in 
the  simple  word  "  divine  "  used  by  Mr.  Web 
ster.  "  Reality  "  is  a  term  in  common  use  and 
has  signification  which  is  very  toughly  held  by 
all  men.  You  find  reality  on  earth.  You  can 
find  the  same  reality  in  the  sun.  You  can  find 
it  in  Arcturus.  You  can  find  it  in 

"  Every  spark  that  walks  alone 
Around  the  utmost  verge  of  heaven  " — 

so  distant  that  "  the  eye  of  man  hath  not  seen 
nor  can  see  it,"  of  whose  existence  the  ether 
alone  can  tell;  yet  there  dwells  the  same  reality 
that  you  touch  on  earth. 

If  a  moral  being  "  takes  the  wings  of  the 
morning  and  dwells  "  in  the  sun  or  in  Arcturus 
or  in  a  star  invisible,  his  "  obligations  will  yet 
be  upon  him;  he  cannot  escape  their  power  or 
fly  their  presence,"  and  he  will  everywhere  find 
"  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  a  divine  reality." 

If  you  wish  to  shut  your  eyes  to  what  you  can 
see  and  to  what  the  ether  can  tell,  you  can  speak 
slightingly  of  Mr.  Webster's  conceptions  and 
attitude  in  theology  and  religion.  What  is 
common  may  be  great.  What  one  makes  of 
the  common  determines  his  greatness  in  ethics 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  47 

and  religion  as  elsewhere.  To  take  an  expres 
sion  from  our  ancient  friend  —  Paley  —  "If 
a  man  pitches  his  foot  against  a  stone  "  he  con 
cludes  to  the  reality  of  matter.  But  his  con 
clusion  is  equally  to  the  reality  of  the  approval 
he  feels  for  a  right  act,  and  to  the  reality  of  the 
fact  that  "  sin  coucheth  at  the  door  "  for  an  act 
of  wrong.  Ethical  right  and  wrong  are  as  real 
as  matter  and  force. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  —  a  man  not  blind 
nor  a  bigot  —  wrote  of  Mr.  Webster: 

"  In  toil  he  lived ;  in  peace  he  died ; 
When  life's  full  cycle  was  complete, 
Put  off  his  robes  of  power  and  pride 
And  laid  them  at  his  Master's  feet." 

What  more  can  you  ask?  What  more  can 
you  get  in  religion?  That  is  simply  the  out 
come  of  its  common  sense.  Mr.  Webster  was 
as  sincere  in  his  religious  testimony  in  those  last 
few  weeks  and  days  as  he  was  in  the  "  Reply  to 
Hayne."  *  The  rapt  and  parting  soul  "  met 
the  summons  to  the  great  transition  in  Chris 
tian  fearlessness  and  trust.  It  is  discredit  to 
Christians  that  they  have  not  gloried  in  that 
profession  as  a  triumph  of  faith.  It  is  igno 
rance  unpardonable  or  cowardice  base  not  to 
add  Mr.  Webster's  deathbed  testimony  to  that 


48  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

of  the  long  roll  of  the  great  and  noble  who  have 
asserted  the  staying  power,  the  comfort  and  the 
satisfaction,  of  the  Christian  faith. 

Now  I  return  to  Mr.  Choate  and  the  eulogy. 
Mr.  Choate  was  a  metaphysician.  That  fact 
gleams  from  the  pages  of  this  great  eulogy.  It 
is  related  of  him  that  in  haunting  bookstores  if 
he  found  a  treatise  on  metaphysics  he  would 
say,  "  Ah,  here  is  meat  " ;  would  purchase,  and 
put  in  the  evenings  at  home  in  its  study.  He 
was  right;  metaphysics  is  everywhere,  and  met- 
apsychics  too.  The  "  metas  "  are  out  to  the 
front  in  everything.  Mr.  Tyndall  says  imagi 
nation  is  the  pioneer  in  science.  Why?  Be 
cause  the  ideal  is  in  the  grain  of  things  —  that 
you  can  assume.  If  you  are  after  a  new  sci 
entific  truth,  imagine  it,  then  verify  to  see  if 
what  you  imagine  will  correspond  with  what  is 
expressed  in  nature.  If  it  will  not,  imagine 
again  and  try  that.  When  your  idea  and  the 
idea  of  nature  correspond,  you  know  you  have 
made  a  discovery  —  you  have  found  a  fact; 
common  sense  will  recognize  it.  Wherever 
there  are  mathematics,  esthetics  or  ethics  there 
are  the  "  metas  "  of  physics  or  of  psychics.  Old 
philosophy  laid  down  at  the  base  of  known  na 
ture,  earth,  air,  fire  and  water.  The  old  phi 
losophy  was  right  —  all  honor  to  it.  Earth, 
air,  fire  and  water  are  here  today.  But  they 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  49 

give  each  "  metas  "  beyond  themselves  piled 
"  Pelion  upon  Ossa  "  high.  Take  water;  the 
first  thing  chemistry  does  is  to  break  it  up  into 
two  elements  which  are  still  matter.  But  the 
next  thing  it  does  is  to  find  mathematics,  a  met- 
aphysic,  in  it.  Then  it  finds  another  meta- 
physic  —  to  wit,  esthetics  —  attached.  The 
rainbow  is  neither  matter  nor  mathematics, 
however  much  they  may  be  involved  in  it. 
But  there  it  is  —  inherent  in  the  water  that  bub 
bles  from  a  spring  on  the  mountain,  or  tumbles 
in  the  waves  of  the  sea,  or  shines  in  the  vapors 
of  Saturn.  The  writer  of  the  book  of  the  Rev 
elation  says,  "  And  there  was  a  rainbow  round 
about  the  throne."  He  has  traced  esthetics  as 
well  as  ethics  up  to  the  Majesty  of  Last  Resort. 
He  makes  Him  to  say:  "  I  will  have  beauty,  as 
well  as  number,  righteousness  and  might." 
These  all  are  "  metas  "  in  their  various  realms. 
Accompanying  them  are  others,  stretching  out 
into  infinity.  With  them  we  have  to  do.  Now 
will  you  bring  us  back  to  the  sod  and  say,  "  Oh, 
these  things  are  beyond  our  grasp.  We  cannot 
weigh  them  on  scales,  or  measure  them  by  feet 
and  inches."  Browning  says,  "  A  man's  reach 
should  exceed  his  grasp."  The  ability  we 
have  and  the  invitation  to  reach  out  into  such 
realms  that  cannot  be  defined  in  terms  of  any 
other,  to  reach  where  we  cannot  and  never  shall 


50  EULOGY  OF  CHOATE 

find  end,  is  one  of  the  muniments  of  our  title  to 
immortality  —  one  of  the  beauties  of  the  eter 
nity  that  lies  before  us. 

That  Mr.  Choate  was  in  various  ways  versed 
in  exercise  in  the  realm  of  the  "  metas  "  is  dis 
closed  in  the  eulogy  —  in  the  appropriateness 
of  the  quiet  manner  of  its  delivery,  in  the  un 
disturbed  repose  of  the  three  hours  of  speech. 
No  matter  what  took  place  about  him  —  though 
in  the  last  hour  it  grew  dark,  lights  were  brought 
in,  torrents  poured  from  the  skies,  and  the 
thunder 

"  Roared  and  howled 
And  cracked  and  growled 
Like  noises  in  a  swound  " — 

still  the  tide  of  eloquence  flowed  on  in  confidence 
and  serenity.  There  is  metapsychic  in  these  at 
titudes,  in  the  threnic  tone  which  pervaded  all 
—  a  plaintive  idealism,  yet  a  reality  as  much  as 
the  rain. 

CONCLUSION 

In  conclusion  I  call  attention  to  the  coinci 
dence  of  these  two  great  minds  in  the  metaphys 
ics  and  metapsychics  that  come  to  view  in  ethics. 
Mr.  Webster  pressed  upon  the  jury  in  the 
White  case  obedience  to  the  common  possession, 
the  sense  of  moral  obligation.  In  comment 


ON  DANIEL  WEBSTER  51 

upon  that  Mr.  Choate  fills  a  page  of  the  eulogy. 
He  quotes  from  Mr.  Webster,  "  A  sense  of 
duty  pursues  us  ever;  duty  performed  or  duty 
violated  will  be  with  us  for  our  happiness  or 
our  misery."  Then  he  makes  his  own  synthe 
sis  of  the  phenomena  of  duty  in  these  words, 
"  the  universality  and  authoritativeness  and 
eternity  of  its  obligation."  Such  statement 
makes  ethical  religion  common.  Great  is  he 
who  can  make  the  most  and  the  best  use  of  it. 

I  commend  this  synthesis  to  ethicists  and  the 
ologians.  They  ought  to  impress  it  upon  "  a 
generation  that  sits  in  the  market  place  "  intent 
only  "  to  pipe  and  to  dance,"  a  generation  given 
only  to  recreation,  a  generation  of  whom  it  may 
be  said  as  of  one  of  old:  "  The  people  sat  down 
to  eat  and  drink  and  rose  up  to  play." 

O  theologians  and  ethicists,  call  back,  call 
back,  to  thought,  feeling  and  action  inspired  by 
conviction  of  the  "  universality,  the  authorita 
tiveness,  the  eternity  of  moral  obligation." 


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